


Of Course

by Coiriuil



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2020281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coiriuil/pseuds/Coiriuil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's inability to relay his emotions leaves his lover in a rather vulnerable state.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Course

**Author's Note:**

> Again, not terribly long. I apologize for the heaping helping of drabbles i keep posting. Someday I'll sit down and actually finish my fic.

When you say it, you regret it, because his eyebrows draw together, that telltale crease presenting itself on his forehead. You regret it because it’s much too soft, and everything is happening in the wrong order.

You know that he won’t say it back.

Love is conceptual.

You know he needs facts.

So you put on that trademark smirk, act as if it didn’t matter, and it won’t matter what he says. {what he won’t say}

"I’ll be in the shower if you need me." You say, waggling your eyebrows like ‘it ain’t no thang’, knowing full well that he’ll be gone by the time you get out. He kisses your lips once and walks away,pretends to scan the titles of the books on the shelf. Playing like he intends to stay. There’ll be a text later, something along the lines of ‘got a new case, see you soon.’

You’ll tell him that you ‘can’t wait’.

You walk down the hall and into the bathroom, and you don’t bother to turn the water on to mask the heavy silence as you stare at your reflection, because you could hear the front door click shut before you’d even placed both feet on the bathroom tile.

You stare, and grip the sides of the marble countertop, trying not to be angry that you obviously invested a lot more of yourself into whatever ‘this’ was than your counterpart.

Your phone vibrates in your pocket.

You know what it says.

You pull it out and set it down on the counter, not bothering to glance at the screen.

Slowly, almost robotically, you strip down to nothing, cool, dry air ghosting over your skin. The small purple marks over your collar bone and neck feel like lies now, the slight bruising at your hip a broken promise.

It doesn’t matter.

It shouldn’t matter.

You turn on the water, holding your hand beneath the spray as it slowly warms against you, the way he did. Or at least, the way he had been, before you fucked it up.

Sentiment.

StupidStupidStupidOrdinaryStupid

You ought to have shut up.

You stand beneath the spray at this point.

You do a lot more hair pulling than hair washing, and you don’t realize how long you’ve been in there until the water runs cold. You turn the knob back to the off position and step out. You towel dry your hair and give your body a cursory swipe, exiting the bathroom with nothing on, taking your mobile with you, leaving your clothes and the towel abandoned on the floor.

You consider putting on his blue silk bathrobe.

You put on your black one instead.

 

1: Missed Message  
From: ‘Sweet Thing’.

[sms] Lestrade called. Sorry to leave so quick. I’ll try to see you soon.-SH

 

-[text: Sweet Thing] Can’t wait.-JM

You make your way to the bedroom, curling up in the spot where he lays. It’s pitiful really, the way you cling to his pillow, inhaling his scent.

You expect him not to come back that night.

What you don’t expect is how long he stays away.

He tells you that he’s busy, that Mycroft has upped the security, that John was getting suspicious anyway, that he’s sorry and he just can’t make it tonight, tomorrow, the next week.

You hate how he lies.

-[text: Sweet Thing] Don’t have to keep apologizing, darling. I can entertain myself ;).-JM

By the time he returns to you, you haven’t sent him a text in days, he hasn’t responded to yours in longer than that. The days have blended into something like a month and a half. It’s long enough for there to be broken furniture and holes punched through the walls. It’s long enough that you haven’t been able to catch his scent for what seems like ages.When he comes through the door, you’re in his armchair at the bottom of a bottle that wasn’t meant to be drank alone.

He has to walk across broken glass to reach you and doesn’t touch you at first.  
“Jim..?” He says it as though he can’t believe it’s you.

You can’t either.

He kneels down and you look away. You don’t want to see him now. Of course you don’t, there’s two days of stubble on your jaw because you just didn’t care and you’d begun to think he was never coming back.

You can’t help but notice though, that it’s been long enough that there’s no trace of you on him anymore, none of those carefully placed marks that peak just so above that silly collar, no slightly reddened lips from being praised often and eagerly by you.

You don’t know if it’s beautiful or tragic, the sight of your untouched angel.

He touches the side of your face and you wish you would die because you’re such a mess and you hate when he sees you broken. When anyone sees you broken.

You wish you didn’t need him so desperately.

And you wish he needed you even half as much.

"Jim…" It’s concern in his voice, which Is promising. At least it wasn’t pity. Pity would have driven you away. You had just enough pride left for that.

You still won’t look at him, not when he tries to tilt your head in his direction, not when he repeats your name along with the command.

You think of telling him to go away.

{You wouldn’t have been able to watch him go if you had.}

He doesn’t know what to do anymore than you, so he rests his forehead on your knee and waits.

He waits for a long time before you decide to acknowledge him, slipping your fingers into the curls you’d almost forgotten the texture of.

"Sherlock." It’s not a question or a plea, it’s just acknowledgement.

You hope he missed you like you missed him.  
You doubted he was capable of feeling things that strongly. 

He looked up from where he sat, eyes glazed over. He climbed into your lap and pretended not to notice that you smelled unmistakably like alcohol, though your clothes were pristine and freshly washed. You let him wind his fingers through your hair and kiss you.

It felt more like a dream than reality.  
And more like a memory than a dream.

He pulled back and met your eyes, the unnameable shade of almost-blue seeming utterly surreal to your eyes.

His eyes said that he was sorry and they seemed to promise

Never ever ever again

And always, always.

At the same time.

You touch his face, content that he doesn't pull away, but wishing that line of worry would leave his forehead.

"I didn't know what to say." Sherlock explains, as though that were the only excuse he needed. You don’t mind much.

"For this long? Saying you hated me would have been better." Sherlock looks as though he might cry. He buries his face in your neck and you are just able to keep yourself from telling him it’s all fine and it doesn’t matter. Because you hate to see him hurt.

But it isn’t okay.

He doesn’t have to love you, but if he doesn’t you have to know.

{God, you hope he loves you.}

"Sherlock."

"Yes, of course I do." He groans, pulling away from you and putting his hands on the sides of your face. He shifts in your lap, letting his forehead rest on yours.  
“Of course I do. And I’m never leaving again, so you can stop thinking of telling me to.” His eyes are closed now, and he takes several deep breaths before he opens them again.  
“I love you.” He says it simply, as if they aren’t the most important words to be spoken throughout all of space and time. Sherlock exhaled shakily as though it had taken quite a lot out of him to say it.

It probably had.

You don’t waste a moment, of course, you pull him close to you, lips connecting as you wound your fingers through his.

You intend to ruin him in the way he loves most, you intend to unravel him the way he insists only you can.

When you wind up on the floor later, curled into each other, stubble burns on much of Sherlock and blood bruises on much of you, he says it again.

It doesn’t bother you that it’s after sex.

His head is on your chest and his legs are tangled with yours and you like the sensation of not being acutely aware of where he ends and you begin.

He inhales and you exhale.

He shivers as you trace patterns into his shoulder, nimble fingers reaching out for you, playing over the planes of your chest.

"Are you staying tonight?"

"Of course."


End file.
